The Good, The Bad, The News: This Week in Germany.

Felicitas Hackmann22 April 2016

From housing to yoga: wimdu’s founders have a new project

After leaving Wimdu, the Rocket Internet clone of Airbnb, in January 2015, the two founders Arne Bleckwenn and Hinrich Dreiling now decided to open a new marketplace. This time for yoga treatments. The idea is to give an overview of all great yoga places worldwide, including retreats and whatnot. Different to Wimdu, with looked seriously one-to-one like Airbnb when it started in 2011, this website looks more like a private blog. OnYoga im Urlaub’s blog, founder Arne Bleckwenn blogs about the places, he has visited. It seems, he is currently in Sri Lanka.
[Deutsche-Startups] (German)

Rumor: BMW and Daimler have discontinued talks with Apple

While some rumors have it that Apple has a secret team working on its iCar in Berlin, others say, relations between the California-based company with BMW and Daimler over a potential collaboration just stopped.

First (last year) BMW, now Daimler, German newspaper Handelsblatt reports, couldn’t find an agreement considering the leadership and ownership of a potential cooperation. Handelsblatt heard this from someone close to the case. As to expect, nobody feels like commenting.[Handelsblatt]

Deutsche Banks cooperates with startups

Understanding corporates and startups can support each other, Deutsche Banks now works together with two Hamburg-based startups: Zinspilot https://www.zinspilot.de/de/start and Figo, as well as Frankfurt-based FinCite, and Berlin-based WebID. Staring next moth, the “Digital Factory” with about 400 software-, IT- and banking experts will sit together with 50 fintech cooperation partners to work closer together.[Gründerszene] (German)

Exit after 15 years of bootstrapping

Nicolaj Armbrust and Sebastian Mastalka launched their platform for holiday apartments in 2001. Traum-Ferienwohnungen is now available in 74 countries with 60,000 holiday apartments, and 120 staff members. Now the founders have decided to sell 50,01 per cent to Leisure Group, which belongs to Axel Springer (the German media publisher), to bring the business to a new level. Both will stay and continue to lead the company.
[Gründerszene] (German)

€1.4 million for Lodgify

Two German and two Italians met on a semester abroad in the UK. Long story short: They decided to start Lodgify, software for holiday apartments. Today, they announce their second investment within 12 month: €1.4 million. The round was led by a Spain-based Nauta Capital, existing investors Howzat Partners, Chris Hitchen and Roland Zeller joined. Lodgify lets customers build their own website but also manage platforms such as Airbnb and 9flats.
[Gründerszene] (German)

42reports report exit

Berlin-based 42reports report on how customers move through shops by tracking their smartphones. Not only Frank Thelen, but also Tengelmann Vetnures and IBB invested in this idea. Now, Berlin-based Dilax Intercom, which also focuses on tracking but more in railway stations and airports, has acquired it. Details of the deal were not shared.
[Gründerszene] (German)

Here is how European taxis will now try to fight Uber & Co

One of Uber’s largest advantages was always that it managed to be available in different places in the world – in an actually pretty short time. MyTaxi also added more and more cities to its app and now, European taxi companies decided to work on a similar solution: the apps taxi.eu and eCap decided to join to become one platform. In numbers that means 100,000 cars in the new app vs. 45,000 taxis on MyTaxi. Let the games begin…
[Gründerszene Automotive Mobility] (German)

TechSchool receives funding

For two years CareerFoundry has been teaching people unfamiliar with the subject how to become a techie within six month. After that, you are either a web developer, an UX- and UI designer or an iOS developer. That also sounded good to Tengelmann Ventures, Bauer Ventures Partners, and IBB, which together invested $5 million in this Series A round.
[Gründerszene] (German)

Rumors of the day: Apple works on its iCar in Berlin

Rumors have it that Apple is working on its iCar not in San Francisco or the Bay Area, but in Berlin. Apparently, a team of 15–20 people are working on it. If you are one of them, drop us an email. Apple, surprisingly, decided not to comment.
[FAZ] (German), [appleinsider]

Rocket Internet and how much it is really worth

Berlin-based Rocket Internet started in 2007. By now, the company has over 36,000 employees in 110 countries. While that sounds pretty impressive, other KPIs do not. And even though just last week Rocket Internet sold Lazada, investors seem to have a hard time figuring out what the company is really worth.
[QUARTZ]